Anyone had Ofsted yet?

[BG2015]

I've been reading Twitter and a few people have shared their 'deep dive' experiences- it's absolutely terrifying.

I teach in a small primary (200 on roll) and lead history and geography. I say lead but I've got a couple of folders with planning and examples of work.

I certainly couldn't talk with confidence about them.

primarytimery.com/2019/09/14/curriculum-planning-ks1-geography/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

KS2 coming later today. OP I thought this might be useful for you. Edutwitter once again.

primarytimery.com/2019/09/21/curriculum-planning-ks2-geography/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

And KS2.

This should help no end.

@Teachermaths yep no formal assessments make it difficult to check if they've learnt anything. It's basically teaching the objectives to the best of your ability and hoping that it's enough. There are no requirements to report assessments in foundation subjects at any stage in primary. It's pure maths and English with a little bit of science assessment at the end of primary.

Yes working with secondaries would be useful. We are not in a MAT.

I'm just a parent, but with a process/procedures background.

Why can't half a dozen teaching/history (and RE and science and and) experts get together and provide a short list of skills/vocabulary to be developed in history during years R-6 so they are then 'off the shelf' for primary schools to adopt if they don't want to make up their own?

Why on earth would every primary school in the country be inventing their own from scratch?

Maybe they have- check twinkl.

Well I'm a victim of my own question.

Just had Ofsted at my school, Tues/Weds. Deep dive into History. It was very, very probing. I'm exhausted but as a school we are pleased.

You jinxed yourself! I'm glad it went generally well.

@TeenPlusTwenties, I guess that's what we had with the first and second national curricula, and the old QCA (have I remembered that right?), but all changed now. And no one can agree on teaching history in chronological order, reverse chronological order, chronological within year group or key stage, thematically (I liked that), topic based, within humanities, separate subject....

Oh wow. I'm almost scared to post on here in case it jinxes me too. Well done though! And now you can relax for a while.

We teach history through topic. He initially struggled to understand how that worked but we bombarded him with planning, skills grids,children's work, pupil voice discussions and then geography (me also) and art/d &t leads showed him how their topics fed through and we think he could see it.

It works in our school - the kids love learning that way. And it appears I actually know more about my subjects than I thought!

I personally having left teaching I will never have to face them again

My daughters school have not been inspected in 12 years. So many changes since then and still no visit. I think Ofsted have forgotten about them!!

We've got ours at the moment and it's horrific!! The level of penikity detail is something beyond any previous Ofsted I've ever known!

Was at a conference yesterday and got some wise advice re: Deep Dives - it should really be that you understand the what and why and when of what they are learning. This must be horrendous at primary, you do have your secondary colleagues sympathy. You can always have the HT or DH in the meeting with you. You can bring notes and curriculum maps into the meeting with you. If you have an hour or so and want to prep I recommend the curriculum review grids on The Key (if your school subscribes) really focuses my thoughts on curriculum.
Unless you are in SM or RI it should be fairly light touch and if you think you have an officious or jobsworth inspector record what they say and feed it back to OFSTED. They can't harass us all about workload and then make it ten times worse with overkill inspections.

We have just been inspected last week. it was brutal most definitely not a light touch Inspection. It's my sixth ofsted and it was definitely the hardest. We were/are not RI.

*were not/are not

Just had our OFSTED and result under the new framework . I was selected for a deep dive interview and observation. It was most definitely not light touch ;thorough but fair , went well but definitely much more intensive than recent Ofsted experiences

We've just has OFSTED. I'm an NQT and had an interview and observation. I was terrified but it actually wasn't that bad, although I have nothing to compare it to.

Just been done. Not selected for a deep dive but I’m a SENDCO so met with them to discuss provision for an hour. Most challenging part for me was I had to show in the students books (a random selection of subjects) evidence of how we were meeting their EHCP targets. Easy with literacy/numeracy/PD needs. Much harder with emotional/social/communication!

My school has just had a visit from our new school improvement partner and it was like an OFSTED inspection. We were under pressure to make everything perfect without really knowing what they were coming to look at. My colleagues & I were grilled on what we thought needed improving in our key stage and then I was asked to speak about any foundation subject I teach and expected to know progression between year groups. I didn’t know this and my response was a fail, apparently. The inspector also said that my colleagues and I were ‘unimpressive’ as a group due to our lack of knowledge and quietness.
Is it just me who thinks this is overly harsh? I know it’s all about how we can improve as a school but it’s just left a bad taste in my mouth. None of us were properly prepared for this meeting, and I hadn’t even been asked by SLT to attend - it was my colleagues who told me I was on the schedule as I work part time. I feel completely demoralised, as do my colleagues. I haven’t had official feedback yet and I don’t know what I’m going to say when I do. Just nod and smile and take it or fight my corner. I’ve a good mind to ask how this inspector aims to tackle staff wellbeing seeing as that’s also on OFSTED’s new framework and staff morale is at an all time low.

This is interesting, particularly for primary teachers without TLRs or non contact time to lead a subject:
neu.org.uk/advice/ofsted-inspection-advice-members-main-or-upper-pay-range

That's really useful. Thanks ValancyRedfern.

Very good article. I'm history and geography lead and our recent inspection saw a deep dive in history and a shallow dive in geography. I'm not SLT or receive a TLR but am on UPS3.

Although I agree with the guidance in the article I think very few primary school teachers would go into a deep dive meeting with an Ofsted inspector spouting off about unions and how they're not accountable for the teaching of their subject. Teachers in primary (and maybe secondary) just wouldn't do that. We feel a deep sense of responsibility towards our pupils and colleagues.

I know if we'd have failed our inspection because of something I said or didn't know I would be mortified.

I think most secondary teachers would be horrified to learn that primary teachers are expected to lead on a subject across the school with no TLR and no non contact time. I certainly am! Nobody wants to do something in an inspection which harms the outcome, but I'd certainly be getting the union involved if I was being treated as a HOD without being paid for it. (In fact when it happened to me I did).

In that case thousands of primary school teachers need to contact their unions then. I'm apparently HOD for two subjects and I don't get a penny extra.

Valency, it happens in secondary as well.
I was told ( no consultation) that i was to be subject lead at A level for a subject that hadn’t even existed when i was at school, never mind me having a qualification in it. I led it for several years with no tlr and no time allocation, i was quite glad when under the last A level review it was dropped from the list of A levels and downgraded to a BTEC and my school decided to no longer offer it ( mostly sad, it had given a load of kids a relevant qualification that had allowed them onto further study/employment in related fields)